THE CASHMERE

Cashmere is one of the most noble knitting yarn which is employed in production of luxurious hosiery; its fibre is obtained by Kashmere’s goat : a white goat but also grey and brown which lives in the mountain areas of Asia’s plateau.
Climate of these zones, cold and dry in winter, hot and torrid in summer makes that these goats have got not only a plentiful fleece but also a thick of "duvet", a lower wool coat which is also called "under-fleece", which is the real and best source of the fibre. The most big and rigid part hair called "giarre" is not employed for Cashmere production.
A goat gives an average little more than 150 gr. of "duvet" in a year, this is the reason of the high cost of this material.

Today it’s only little quantity of this material that comes from Indian Kashmere province, from which this fibre has taken the name.
A big quantity of Cashmere comes also from Iran, from Afghanistan and from the external part of Mongolia; the most appreciated Cashmere is in the inside part of Mongolia, a region which is in the Chinese Republic.
Fields and pasture-lands cover the 78% of total area. Breeding is the traditional occupation of Mongolian nomadic people and it’s the most important one. The nomadism doesn’t permit a real census of goats in Chine, so maybe over 7 millions of sheep only 6 millions produce Cashmere.

The process of Cashmere production has got 5 main phases: cut, selection and washing, egiarratura, spinning and weaving. The cutting phase is made during the changing period in spring when the animals loose in a natural way their hair.
In China and in Mongolia hair is taken off with a big comb thanks to sudden tears. On the contrary in Iran and in Afghanistan animals are sheared, then there is a manual selection in order to separate the coarse and bristly part, the the washing phase to cancel dirty and greasy which are accumulated during the cut phase. The least cleaning phase is called egiarratura, during which the vegetable materials, the scurf and the external and bristly parts (giarre) are eliminated.
At the end of the process the Cashmere is ready to be changed into yarn for weaving and knitting (4° and 5° phase).